The Pope and the banner removed
from Il Fatto Quotidiano
"I love Milingo" This was written on a banner on display inside the library Altroquando of Palermo. The Digos (Division of General Investigations and Special Operations is an Italian law enforcement agency and de facto political police, charged with investigating sensitive cases relating to terrorism, organized crime) did not like the phrase: it was deemed "offensive" to the Pope who would pass there soon to Via Vittorio Emanuele, the same street where is located the library. The banner has been destroyed despite the protests of the bookseller: "It is my home" he screamed. It 's the second case in Palermo, after another banner with the words of the Gospel (My house will be called a house of prayer,] but you are making it a den of robbers) removed by firefighters from a house in front of the place where the pope had to talk to the people of Palermo.
This morning, Sunday, October 3, 2010, at 11:30 am, several police officers were in uniform and Digos officials have ordered the removal of a banner inside the window of the library Altroquando in Via Vittorio Emanuele 143 Palermo. The banner read the sentence: I LOVE Milingo. The police seized along with posters of the exhibition "The future of the popemobile" for three days staged in the same library. The argument that the measure was offensive to consider such a sentence at the very moment when the procession of the pope would go to Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
We believe strongly that this action undermines the constitutional rights of freedom of expression of one's thinking, both by critics and satire. We believe that the message in question did not offend anyone, nor incite violent behavior.
Instead it was a sign of the political love that so much has recently made its way to Italy. Because a message of love and reconciliation should be offensive? Why Pope Benedict XVI should ignore the rule of forgiveness on which the Christian doctrine? Milingo really does not deserve to be loved? Palermo deserve this miracle really down?
